The back cover of the book says “This book of quick tips and practical ideas shows how to fuse technology with everyday teaching. Readers will learn ways to use presentation software, e-portfolios, digital cameras, interactive whiteboards, and other teacher-tested tools to enhance learning and motivate students.” What you get, however, is simplistic and fairly unhelpful.

Key quotes

Here are a couple of examples of what’s in the book…

Have students go online and find a free software tool for creating blogs. They name their blogs and create a blog address or URL. Encourage students to make the title catchy. Have students choose a template, a tool that creates the page where they write and categorizes content. Have students write their first blog posting. (p. 16)

That’s it. That’s the kind of advice you get for setting up your students’ blogs. If you can navigate these instructions successfully, you don’t need the book in the first place because you already know enough about blogs to make this happen.

Here’s another one…

Publish the podcast. Go to any free online server that provides a server for uploading audio files. (p. 32)

Again, I’m thinking that any educator that can do this successfully with the given instructions has no need for the book. The book is full of stuff like this.

Rating

I give this book 1 highlighter (out of a possible 5). I was tempted to give it 0, but there are some redeeming ideas for future lessons scattered throughout the book. As far as I can tell, there isn’t much other reason for anyone to buy this book. Whatever’s in here can be better found on web sites and blogs.

The New South Wales province in Australia is on a quest to outfit every Year 9 to 12 student with a customized Lenovo netbook by 2012. It is expected that over 200,000 computers will be distributed to students and teachers. If you’re interested, you can read more about the project or listen to a podcast about the initiative.

I think this is a GREAT idea. Guess which high school graduates will be better prepared for a digital world: those who get to use computers in interesting and empowering ways on a regular basis or those who don’t?

The first live podcast will occur tomorrow and will feature Dr. Karen Seashore, who holds the Rodney Wallace Professorship for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota. Karen will be discussing the linkages between P-12 school leadership and student academic learning outcomes. As a former faculty colleague of Karen’s, I know her well and anticipate that this will be a great conversation.

I think this was one of our best podcasts to date. Chuck shared a wealth of information about the statewide principal institutes that he’s running, and we learned a ton about the legislative supports, Department of Education commitments, funding and policy mechanisms, and other supports that are in place in the state. I have the sense that West Virginia really is trying very hard to move its schools (and its school leaders) forward in a thoughtful, progressive, sustainable manner.

You can download the podcast or listen to a Web-streamed version here:

Chuck Heinlein, Director of the Leadership Center for 21st Century Schools at the West Virginia Department of Education, will be our guest tomorrow on the 4 Guys Talking podcast. Chuck has an incredible job. Over the past few years he has run hundreds of administrators in his state through year-long institutes on 21st century schooling. As far as I can tell, West Virginia is far ahead of other states when it comes to investing in a statewide model for 21st century leadership development.

Here are my top 10 2008 K12 Online Conference podcasts for busy principals and superintendents (in no particular order). These are the K12 Online presentations that I think are most likely to interest, educate, and entertain administrators as well as make them think!

Load these onto an iPod, hand it to a busy school administrator, and say, “Here are some presentations that I think you’ll enjoy while you’re exercising or driving around. After you’ve listened to a few, let me know what you think!”

Here are my top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy principals and superintendents (in no particular order). These are the TED presentations that I think are most likely to interest, educate, and entertain administrators as well as make them think!

Load these onto an iPod, hand it to a busy school administrator, and say, “Here are some presentations that I think you’ll enjoy while you’re exercising or driving around. After you’ve listened to a few, let me know what you think!”

We continued to talk about the difficulty of getting our faculty peers on board ideologically and, even when they are, also getting them the training and knowledge that they need but currently lack. There’s little support for faculty even when they do want to move in this direction.

After Lane left us, we continued to talk about the struggles that educational leadership programs face as they work to prepare appropriately-empowered graduates. One issue that we started to discuss – and probably should spend some more time on in a later podcast – is the desirability of having certain technology and/or leadership expectations for admission of our incoming students (who are typically teachers or principals) and/or explicitly-stated desired outcomes for our graduates regarding technology leadership.

What can k-12 schools do while higher ed is trying to figure [out] their leadership programs? It is hard for us to wait…we need change now!

She’s got us dead to rights, I’m afraid. Other than for her to keep plugging away on her end, I don’t have any great answers right now for her concern. It’s going to take a while for those of us in academe to get our act together (if ever we will).

You can download the podcast or listen to a Web-streamed version here:

[I'm still reworking CASTLE Conversations, the old CASTLE podcast channel, which will include all previous and podcasts (including 4 Guys Talking). I'll post about it when it's ready (probably not until later this summer).]